Aimed at sellers
1. The forged cashier's check
The most common tool used against private sellers. A counterfeit looks right, and your bank may make the funds available within a day or two — which is not the same as the check having cleared. When it bounces weeks later the money comes back out of your account, and the car is long gone.
Kills it: "Happy to take a cashier's check — let's meet at your bank when it opens and I'll have them verify it while we're both standing there."
2. Overpayment and refund the difference
The buyer sends more than the asking price and asks you to wire back the difference for a "shipper" or "transport agent". The original payment is fraudulent; the refund you send is real money.
Kills it: Never refund an overpayment. Return the whole instrument and ask for the correct amount.
3. Reversible instant payments
Peer-to-peer payment apps are built for people who already know each other. Many can be reversed or charged back, and several explicitly do not protect purchases from strangers. "Payment received" on your phone is not the same as keeping the money.
4. The escrow site they send you
A buyer proposes escrow and helpfully provides the link. The site is theirs, and it looks convincing. Real escrow is arranged by you, with a company you found independently.
5. The out-of-area buyer who will not visit
They will buy it sight unseen, at full price, and arrange collection. This is nearly always a wrapper around one of the payment scams above.
Do the paperwork here. Create a bill of sale, have both parties e-sign from their own phones, and get the legal PDF emailed to both of you. Start free →
Aimed at buyers
6. Curbstoning
An unlicensed dealer posing as a private owner, flipping auction cars from a parking lot. The tells: the name on the title is not theirs, they have several vehicles listed, they want to meet somewhere other than home, and they are vague about the car's history. Curbstoned cars are disproportionately flood and salvage vehicles.
Kills it: "Can you send a photo of the title with your name on it?"
7. "I don't give out the VIN"
There is no legitimate reason to withhold a VIN. It is visible through the windscreen from outside the car and reveals nothing sensitive about the owner. Refusing is a hard stop.
8. Title washing
A car totalled in one state gets retitled in another to launder the salvage brand off the paperwork. This is exactly what a VIN history check exists to catch — and exactly why the previous point matters. Free VIN and recall check →
9. Odometer rollback
Digital odometers are not tamper-proof. Compare the reading against wear on the pedal rubbers, the steering wheel and the driver's seat bolster, and against mileages recorded on old service records and inspection reports.
10. "The title is at my cousin's / at the bank / I'll sign an open title"
No title in hand means no sale today. An "open title" already signed by someone else is illegal in most states and can leave you unable to register the car at all.
11. Manufactured urgency
"Another guy is coming at nine with cash." The entire purpose of a deadline is to stop you checking things. A real seller with a real car will still have it tomorrow.
12. The deal that is too good
A car priced thousands below every comparable listing is not a bargain, it is bait — usually for a deposit on a car that does not exist, or a vehicle with a branded title the seller is hoping you will not check.
The four questions that expose most of it
- "Can you send me the VIN?" — refusing ends it.
- "Is the title in your name and in your hand right now?" — anything other than a plain yes is a problem.
- "Can we meet at your bank when it's open?" — a scammer needs the transaction to happen away from a bank.
- "Can I take it to my mechanic?" — a genuine seller with nothing to hide says yes.
What our AI check does with this
Paperwork Max's deal scout reads a listing or a seller's messages and scores them against these patterns — pricing anomalies, pressure language, refusals, inconsistencies between claims and photos — and writes the follow-up questions worth sending. It is a paid feature because every check costs real money to run.
Treat the output as one opinion. It flags risk patterns; it does not determine that any real person has committed a crime, and it is no substitute for the four questions above or a mechanic's inspection.